The Journal
Current Affairs
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Home Births an Unreasonable Risk for Most
This report from a minor Australian paper is headlined ‘Home Births Still Safe, Says Expert.’ It quotes Professor Michael Chapman, who is director of women’s and babies’ health at the St George and Sutherland hospitals. But…
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Obama Bows to King Abdullah
While Queen Elizabeth gets a nod. This is all over the internet, I know. Perhaps because it seems to say something important. I wasn’t going to comment, but this YouTube video makes it clear just how…
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$43 Billion and No Business Plan
Kevin Rudd admitted today that the Federal Government had no business plan to confirm the new broadband plan’s viability or cost effectiveness compared with other options. Malcolm Turnbull said: “This is the most reckless statement about…
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Somali Pirates and Abu Sayyaf – Paying Bad Guys Doesn’t Work
Having made millions from ransoms in recent years, Somali pirate gangs are using increasingly sophisticated boats and radar equipments to spot, chase and capture other vessels. On average a ship is attacked every day. About one attack…
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Courtney Love Ripped Off for Over $700 Million
That’s about $45 million in cash and $700 million in real estate. She didn’t notice the money was going until there wasn’t any left. This is the estate left by Curt Cobain to Courtney Love and…
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Varied Responses to Barack Obama. From ‘Non’ and ‘Nein’ to ‘No’
And yet, the things the Europeans said ‘no’ to were things I would have said ‘yes’ to. Namely, a stronger response to North Korea’s missile launch (which was meant to be threatening, demonstrated an ability to strike as far Alaska…
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Education Tax Refund
I only heard of this today. Australian parents and caregivers can get back up to 50% of the cost of eligible education expenses for primary and secondary schooling. The link is worth following if you live…
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Global Warming – a Brief Inroduction
I have just uploaded a brief introductory essay called Profits of Doom – An Introduction to Global Warming. Left click the link to open the PDF file in a new tab, or right click to save.…
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Barack Obama Won’t Visit Normandy to Avoid Upsetting Germany
It’s 65 years since the landing at Omaha Beach in Normandy. Over 9,000 Americans are buried at the American cemetary there, including the eldest son of President Theodore Roosevelt. President Sarkozy invited President Obama to visit…
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Breastfeeding Mum Too Drunk for Breath Test
Oh dear. A 19 year old woman drives her car out of a hotel car park into the path of a police vehicle. She is breast feeding her baby son, who is unrestrained. She is so…
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Take Care at the ATM
A couple of different reports over the last 24 hours about skimming (information trapping) devices attached to automatic teller machines. Just take care. If an ATM looks suspicious, don’t use it, and report it to bank staff or…
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Couldn’t Some of the Internet Cash go to Emergency Medical Care?
Emergency medicine specialists say as many lives are lost in Australia each year because of inadequate ER resources (including staff), as are lost on our roads. Time to think about your priorities, boys and girls. Or…
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Government to Spend $43 Billion On Internet Infrastructure
National broadband gets the go ahead, but the government will do it itself. There are already some criticisms. No time to write in detail about this today, but a few questions spring to mind. If the Federal Government has…
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New Zealand’s Murder Rate Halved in Last 20 years
Murder rates in Australian have moved up and down at about the same time, in about the same way. That’s interesting, because as this NZ Herald article points out, most people believe that crime rates, and…
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Heat Wave but no Global Warming?
Interesting… Several stories on major Australian media sites about extra deaths possibly caused by the Victorian heatwave in January. But so far, not a single mention of CO2 or global warming. Quite rightly, of course, because…